Chinese President Xi Jinping and Russian President Vladimir Putin will attend the G20 summit in Indonesia. Indonesian President Joko Widodo said in an interview with Bloomberg. “Xi Jinping will come. Putin also told me he will be there,” the Indonesian leader said. It is the first time that Widodo has confirmed the presence of the two presidents at the November summit. In recent months, Joe Biden has called for Russia’s expulsion from the G20 in response to his invasion of Ukraine. And several US government officials pressured Widodo not to invite Putin to the summit.
The presence of Xi and Putin at the meeting, if confirmed, would result in a showdown of sorts with American President Joe Biden and other Democratic leaders: in fact, they would all be meeting in person for the first time since the Russian invasion of Ukraine that left land on Feb. 24, just weeks after Putin and Xi declared their “unlimited” partnership in Beijing. Putin and Joko “Jokowi” Widodo discussed preparations for the G20 summit in Bali in a phone call on Thursday, the Kremlin said in a statement, without mentioning the leader’s attendance. Putin’s presence could pit him against Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy, who has been invited to Bali for the first time since the attack on Moscow. “The rivalry between the big countries is really worrying,” said Widodo, 61, during the interview. “What we want is for this region to be stable and peaceful so that we can build economic growth. And I’m not just thinking about Indonesia: Asian countries want the same thing too.” As the rotating president of the G20, Indonesia has sought to balance relations between the great powers and resisted pressure to exclude Russia from the meetings. After US House Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s visit to Taiwan, Indonesia’s foreign ministry said the world “needs wisdom and responsibility to maintain peace and stability,” while stressing that it respects the policies expressed by other Southeast Asia ” of the only China” respect nations. The Indonesian president dismissed concerns that US-China tensions could spill over to the South China Sea via Taiwan, saying nations should instead focus on managing food, energy and pandemic crises. “Indonesia wants to be friends with everyone,” he said. “We have no problems with any country. Each country will have its own approach. Each leader has their own approach. But what Indonesia needs is investment, the technology that will transform our society,” Widodo concluded.
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